... to refuse to let my MIL visit, with large entourage, 10 days before DC2 is due?

[sushistar]

She wants to come with 3 other inlaws and one of their babies, for 'a few hours'. I will be 38+6 and have a 2 year old DC1, and am feeling very tired. We did the rounds at Christmas, saw everyone, and I sort of thought i'd got the inlaws ticked off until after the birth. I don't want to entertain 5 for tea just before baby comes. I want to stay in my PJs and eat chocolate. I've told DH he must tell her no... he tried to say no at Christmas but she was very pushy.

I'm genuinely not sure - AIBU?

The competitive suffering on ths thread does make me laugh. In a minute someone will come on with their tale of having 13 children under 3 while they were pregnant with quads and they still managed to throw 7 course dinner parties right up until the babies were crowning (all delivered in a field with no medical assistance of course). It's pathetic. Who needs society to be sexist ? Sometimes women are our own worst enemies.

As for this "pregnancy is a doddle, suck it up" nonsense, it's frankly ridiculous. We all know that everyone has a different experience of pregnancy - my SIL has a PE and has had to take various drugs and has not had a great time, despite being determined to maintain the facade. I on the other hand have never felt better. I wouldn't dream of telling her to pull herself together, pregnancy is a doddle.

Fibilou, you called?
That would be me. Sort of.

When I was expecting ds2 MIL was supposed to come and stay for a month to help look after ds1 etc. Then she said she couldnt. My sister said not to worry, she would come, and she brought her 9 year old dd. MIL got miffed and rushed over (from overseas, like my sister and her dd). Then we had to take in my dhs female colleague on a placement from India as her mum threw a fit about her daughter staying in a hotel with strange men walking past her room in the night.... So, MIL, Sister, niece, colleague from India. Happy days. Then as the indian colleague was here, dh decided it was best that they did NOT go to the office, but work from home, so he brought another key colleague in, so the three of them worked 9 to 6 from his study. We have a relatively small 3 bed house with a dining room converted to a study. 2 up 2 down so to speak.

The Family stayed for about a month. DS1 has never eaten more chocolate. I have never cooked more elaborate meals, having suddenly to cater for a hindu diet of no beef and pork, and please more chilli. DS2 was born in the middle of all this. Indian colleage stayed 2 months, and managed to fall in love with dh and tried to take my place with him and the kids. Yup. All in the past now.

ThumbleBells "Morloth, at the idea of your MIL and SIL duking it out!"

SIL won, but MIL has the consolation prize of going baby shopping so that everything is ready for when we move home in July. She is like a little kid in a sweet shop and keeps sending me links to see what I want.

The trick is going to be getting her to take money for all of this stuff. If she spends less than $5,000 I will be astonished.

Can you say Overkill?

NanaNina - it is very interesting that you are prepared to accept without question the OP's statement that she has told her dh to tell her MIL she can't visit when she wants to, but are utterly unwilling to accept her statements that her MIL refused to visit on a different day.

You tell me that I cannot know the content or tone of the converstations the OP had with her MIL, but you magically know exactly what the tone and content of her conversation with her dh was.

You can't have it both ways.

at Morloth - I doubt you'll get her to accept any money without hurting her feelings - don't do it, let her have her pleasure. My MIL is just the same and won't take a penny - in fact we have a hard job buying anything for DS ourselves as we only have to mention it and she says she'll pay for it! (I've stopped mentioning things now )

My nanna used to press money into my hands every time I visited them when I lived away from home "for petrol" - I tried to refuse it, I didn't need it (I was working) but she made me see that it made her happy to give it and she would have felt guilty if she didn't, because I always visited them, they never came to me.

And I meant to say in my last post - Ghouls pmsl at your Pythonesque contribution!

Your DH needs to sort this one, she's his Mother. Why is she so desperate to come round to your house with loads of folk anyway? I would say day after or not at all too.

I am with the camp of you are only pregnant, you have not lost the use of your arms or your legs!

Large entourage - feck me it's not J Lo size - it is 5 people!

MadameCastafiore - pregnancy is not an illness, but it can be absolutely exhausting for some women. And some visitors are a positive pleasure to have, no matter how you feel, whereas some others are hard work even when you are feeling at your absolute best - and I get the impression that the MIL and her mini-entourage (better? ) falls into the latter catagory.

It seems to me that the calculations go something like this -

Exhausted, very pregnant woman, + group of difficult visitors = nightmare visit that OP can't face.

Exhausted, very pregnant woman + helping dh + group of difficult visitors (willing to compromise on date of visit) = tolerable visit that the OP could cope with.